Mother

This is my feeble attempt at story-telling.

She was a mother. Sitting beneath a mango tree which had begun flowering at the fag end of Spring, she thought about her grown-up children who had gone fishing in the roiling sea.
Looking up from the task of making brooms from the green coconut fronds spread around her, she saw that grey clouds shrouded the sky, threatening to pour pails of water from their cottony wombs.
Calling out to her husband who was resting inside their hut after two days of fishing in the sea, she voiced her concern about their two sons and the imminent storm.
When she could hear no answer from the hut, she went inside, only to find her husband shivering with fever and uttering incoherent words in his incognizance.
Worried about both her husband and sons, she was torn between rushing out to seek the help of her neighbours and the urge to run to the beach to look out for her sons’ return before the storm began. Finally she made a choice. Standing before the angry waves whipping the sands for being naughty and shifty, she prayed to the Sea Mother to protect her sons and all other sons of the sea who were out fishing and thus were vulnerable to the vagaries of nature. Then she ran to her neighbour’s house where she found that her friend’s husband, also a fisherman, was not at home. Sensing that she would not find help anywhere else in the storm, she desolately walked back.
When the mother returned home, she could see that a full storm had begun and the high tide had reached the coconut trees which were swaying dangerously low and close to her hut. As she stood horrified, the fronds lashed out and hit the roof of the hut, which flew off in its entirety and landed at the top of a group of cacti plants.
Standing before the now roofless hut and watching as rain took possession of their meager belongings as if collecting its long due debt, she cried thinking of the fate of her children and cursing herself for letting them go fishing that day.
Running inside, she called out to her husband. When he did not stir, she went to him and dragged his inanimate body to a corner of the hut. She tried desperately to cover him with the two silk sarees -one red with peacock dancing in the pallu, the other blue with gold stripes- which were kept safely in a trunk and were her only prized possessions since marriage. Before long, the sarees were soaked and clung to her now-unconscious husband.
Night fell, with no sign of her children. Her gaze rooted to the broken door with no roof, she sat silently beside her husband, tears dissolving in the rain which now flowed as a stream near her feet.

Soon she heard someone approaching the ruined hut. Glancing up, she saw that her neighbor couple had come to their aid. The fellow fisherman picked up her husband and carried him to their home while she followed with her friend, looking back at what was once their home, hoping against hope that her sons would miraculously materialize there at that instant.
The next morning, she found out that along with the hut and all their possessions, the storm had also snatched away her husband’s life from her. Realising that nothing else was left to be lost, a calmness pervaded her aged soul. She walked slowly to the beach and stood in the rain, facing her Sea Mother. Grey sheets of rain continued to fall on the raging sea, angering it further and causing the waves to lash out with increasing frequency.
Turning to the sea, she saw with shock that a boat was being gently carried to the shore atop an enormous wave which neither had a crest, nor diminished as it approached her. Transfixed at the sight of her two sons clinging to the sides of the boat, she thanked the Sea Mother for returning her sons unharmed. Love misting her eyes, she saw only her sons and not the wave, which swept her up as it gently lowered the boat. Her sons watched from their boat as their mother was taken away by the Sea Mother into her womb, in exchange for their lives. Climbing down from their boat and running towards the receding wave, they heard their mother’s voice: “Get away from the storm, my children. You’ll catch a cold.”

Deluge and delusion

It was the third day of incessant rains. Peeping through the first floor window of my grandparents' house, I could see that the river which flowed beyond the farmlands, begin to swell and its orange waters creep slowly beyond its banks towards our house. As we watched in increasing horror, the swirling torrent swallowed everything in its path, felling huge trees, drowning the deer, peacocks, rabbits and other small animals, gobbling up my aunt's entire garden with rare ornamental plants and beautiful flowers.                       In no time, all one could see was the vast expanse of muddied water, angrily thrashing against the steps of our house.My uncle, in all solemnity, declared that the water will rise one stair per hour and we laughed at his prediction. But three hours and three stairs later, the flood had entered our house.                                                            With water seeping into the mud-walled house, the earthing of which was faulty, we started experiencing electric shocks. Though the elders were earlier confident that the rain would stop at anytime and the flood would recede, they too lost their hope as the courtyard and the lower verandah got submerged.                                               As the front wall of the house collapsed, we ran inside in panic. I sneaked to the first floor window to take in the fury of nature against us mortals when my mom angrily ordered me to come down lest the floor collapsed. Nothing remained including a lovely lake which had as its wreath numerous rose bushes and hibiscus plants.                          With all other routes to safety cut off, we had one choice -- to climb the hillock that lay just behind our house. As twilight approached, we had to decide if we were going to spend the night in the house which may collapse on us anytime or stay at the old Shiva temple in the midst of the dense forest atop the hillock which was open to elements. It was then that our saviours arrived. They were the labourers who worked in our fields and worried by the terrible storm, had come to check on us.                          About 20 years later, I remember trudging through the woods in the rains to their thatched hut several miles inside the forest and getting a warm welcome. We kids slept on the clean, dung-washed floor of the single room that was their hut while the elders sat through the cold and cruel night.                                                                                           Most parts of our house had collapsed by the next morning.Years later, I remember not just the flood which cornered us but also the humanity of that family which provided us a sanctuary against the wild and angry nature -- a compassion where the delusions of caste, creed and wealth no longer mattered.